Halfway There {RSC 2016}

Since we are now officially halfway through the block making portion of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I thought that it was time to show off all 55 of my farmer's wife blocks that I have made thus far.

I am SOOO HAPPY with this so far! I am excited that I get to make 56 more! I'm also happy with the great variety of colors, tones, and different fabrics. There isn't a single block that seems out of place now that all of the blocks are together.

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

Finished Good Karma Placemats

Hooray for finishes -- no matter how small!

My Good Karma placemats are now finished. It took me slightly longer than one evening to do the binding, but I am thrilled with the results.

As I mentioned in my previous post, these were scraps leftover from my Frame of Mind quilt, with the exception of the binding, which came from my Square Pegs quilt.

For the binding, I machine bound each and for the stitching on the front, I used a decorative star stitch. It uses a lot of thread, but it is just so cute! I've used it before on the shelf runners I made for my baker's rack.

Gratuitous corner shots because they turned out GREAT on all four placemants -- a true miracle!

These shots also show the quilting off well if you didn't have a chance to look at it before. This is now the fifth time I've used this motif for a major FMQ project. It's a good one to have in the arsenal because it is easy to scale up and down and can be adapted as an all over filler or for your borders.

These are now adorning my table and bringing in some spring! I did also ScotchGuard these placemats (which I haven't done before) because of all of the white fabric. We'll see how well that holds up against all of the sticky and stain-producing things that we eat on the regular. :)

Sharing at Free Motion Mavericks and Finish it up Friday!

May is for Makers {Week 4: Peppermint Twist by Sharon Holland}

It's already Week 4 of May is for Makers! Time is flying!

This week, a Christmas quilt caught my eye -- maybe because I've had Christmas quilts on the brain lately!

I decided to purchase Peppermint Twist by Sharon Holland. This is another more advanced pattern but unlike some of my previous May is for Makers purchases I don't have anything in mind for this one quite yet. I definitely think this is super adorable and I'll be able to use my 60 degree ruler!

Do you like to challenge yourself with your quilting? What inspires you to learn new techniques?

Facets {RSC May 2016}

Since I finished my Farmer's Wife blocks last week, I decided to dig in my abandoned project box to see if there was anything I could work on to keep making a dent in my green scraps.

A long, long while back, I started working on scrappy birthstone blocks. At the time, only ended up making four blocks and then the project got shuffled into the box. This pattern is from No Hats in the House.

From my pile of greens, I was able to pull out a pile of fabrics that would work for an emerald block and a pile for a peridot block. Here are my two green blocks:

I had to work in a few more prints into the peridot block, but I think it still turned out good and will blend well with the blocks once they are all done.

Now I have six blocks done!

Top row: February amethyst, April diamond, May emerald

Bottom row: June alexandrite, August peridot, November citrine

I will still need to make a garnet for January, aquamarine for March, ruby for July, sapphire for September, opal for October, and blue topaz/tanzanite for December. That's three blue blocks, two red blocks and one white/rainbow block that will be worked in over the next few months. 

Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday and Sew Cute Tuesday!

Good Karma Placemats {WIP Wednesday}

A while back, I started working on some place mats made from the scraps left over from my Frame of Mind quilt. I had the ends of all of my strip pieced pairs, and was able to cut 7.5 inch sections from the "stubs."

I ended up having to take some of the pairs apart to get my strips to alternate properly, but I had enough to make four place mats from my scraps. I had lots of my blue backing left over as well, so I layered them all up with batting scraps.

These sat on my quilt rack for a long time and I finally just sat down and got all of them quilted last night. I used the same swirly chrysanthemum quilting pattern as I did in my Frame of Mind quilt.

I didn't have enough of the ziggy stripe to bind it with the same fabric, but I found the extra backing that I had from my Square Pegs quilt will work perfectly for binding these -- and I won't have to piece them at all! Hooray!

I'm hoping to finish these tonight and it shouldn't take long since they are all trimmed and ready to go!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social!